Prince of Asturias Awards

Concord 2000

The Royal Spanish Academy and the American Academies are bodies charged with conserving, enriching and uniting a cultural heritage –our language– that can be considered the Spanish-American community’s most valuable asset. The cultural importance of the Spanish language, spoken by almost four hundred million people, is increasing thanks to the fundamental contribution of the Royal Academy and the American Academies.

There has been a mutual link between these Academies since 1965 through the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language, which unites 22 bodies ranging from the Royal Spanish Academy to the American Academies, including both Corresponding and Associate Members. This association represents, promotes and protects the Spanish language via the organising of different congresses and seminars in which the different Academies jointly take part. Chaired by the Director of the Spanish Academy, the fundamental mission of its standing committee is to coordinate the work of the different Academies, especially in preparing the Dictionary of the [Spanish] Language, in collecting material for the Reference Corpus of Modern Spanish and in producing the Academy’s Dictionary of Latin American Terms.